Bailey wrote:Well it may have not have any impact on hunter recruitment I firmly believes it has an impact on hunter retention. I know of 7-10 guys that used to hunt Minnesota a lot and in the last ten years now only go to the Dakotas, Canada, and other southern states. They do not hunt Minnesota at all and never intend to again. They are still hunting 7-20 days a year just none in Minnesota. I used to hunt Minnesota 30 days a year but now a few at most. When time is very limited and you only have say a week to hunt you are going go to SD or Canada where you can shoot a limit every day. At least that is what I am going to do. I am not going to drive three hours to western MN not knowing if I will see any ducks or not. I could when I was younger and had the time marriage and kids changes that. However, Bullet is going to shoot a limit no matter where he goes. He could go to Carlos Avery and be done in twenty minutes. Some people just have the magic tough.
I get it... everyone's busy and only getting busier. Traveling to Canada or the Dakota's or Arkansas or Texas has been going on since I can remember and likely a long time before that. I can remember in the 70's some of my dad's friends hunting Canada and Canada only. Die hard waterfowlers in their youth but like you, life happened...married, kids, only a limited amount of time, so they maximized opportunity and went to the place which would allow them the highest chance for success. This is nothing new. Honestly so what.... so what if you travel to ND or Canada? You're a retained participant. So what if you're buddies do? same answer... However the overall trend is that nationally our numbers are dwindling, even in some pretty great areas.
I do know that we've been using the wetland and habitat loss boogie man umbrella for virtually every problem in waterfowling. The migration doesn't happen: blame wetland management. It happens too fast: blame wetland management. Our genre is losing hunter numbers by the thousands: blame wetland management. You trip and sprain an ankle at your favorite WMA: you guessed it.... It's an easy one to use because it places blame on everyone but us... When we're the issue on this one. I've got a fair amount of buddies that hunt waterfowl. But far less numbers of their kids do. Just real quick thinking/math: the approximate ratio just in my tiny world is for every 5 adults (with families) I know that waterfowl hunt only 1 child of those person(s) is waterfowl hunting and that's likely being generous.
If we turn a blind eye at recruitment we're a sinking ship and that's exactly what's happening. The old 'fowlers are dieing off and very few new one's are there to take their place.